Guilin

The final stop on my trip was Guilin. Logistically, it would would have been easier and cheaper to do Hong Kong/Shenzen to Guilin to Xiamen instead of Xiamen in the middle, but that stop was coordinated around others' travel plans.

I went there to see two groups of people. My little brother's ex girlfriend, who is a really sweet girl and a good friend of the family now, was there to visit a sorority sister that's teaching English there, so I wanted to see her while she was on my side of the world. Also, two of my friends from Songyuan are on holiday for a month and were planning to be there as well, so I wanted to connect with them.

In Guilin, I stayed in a hostel in a great location in the middle of downtown, right on the river. I was there for two days and three nights. The first day I checked in and then met my friend from the States, and her friend, and we wandered around the shopping streets for a bit, grabbed some food, etc. They had to teach for like five hours that night, so after they went to go do that I ended up meeting some cool people at my hostel (Chinese and foreign) to hang out with in the evening. We went for some crazy food, had a couple beers and played cards around the hostel (it was raining crazy hard).

This looks like soup, but it's actually a kind of tea that Guilin is known for. It's a black tea with a slightly peppery flavor. You put puffed rice, peanuts and little bread things that look like chick peas and taste like crackers in it and use a spoon to drink it.

Blood soup! I didn't ask who's blood, I just ate it.

Somehow this was my first time eating snails.

There's legit technique to it. Any time gloves are involved in eating, you know it's serious business.

The second day, I got up and met my friend from the States at her friend's university. We grabbed breakfast with a couple of other foreign teachers and then they all had stuff to do, so my friend and I were left to our own devices. We went to a gorgeous park that honestly could have entertained us for a week, there was so much to see and do!

This sign has maybe a quarter of the stuff the park had to offer on it. Unfortunately, we did not have time to investigate "ONCE MALE ROCK"...

How. Flipping. Gorgeous.

No clue what this bird is, but he was so pretty! Also, yes, they do let you get freakishly close to the animals. All of them.

Screw sad panda, this camel was the saddest animal there.

lesser pandas = adorable

Happy pandas!

random pix: Xiamen misc

Absinthe by Marilyn Manson? Where do they come up with this stuff? Screw it, I'm in.

Drunken bar fight version of anti bird ledge toppers.

This is probably only amusing to me, but it's a halved mannequin next to a box of Santa hats. In May. In China. Nevermind.

WHY IS THIS MANNEQUIN PREGNANT AND FARTING?!?!?

Scariest place ever.

This seems like an unusually happy military group...

Camel cigarettes is now sponsoring children's camping outings?

random pix: unfortunate Xiamen business names

This is a restaurant. No joke. And a chain at that.

I get what they're going for here with the whole military thing, but still...

Xiamen

My next stop after Hong Kong was Xiamen, a multipurpose stop. I plan to move there in the next few months, so I was scouting for jobs and places to live in addition to doing the whole rah, rah, fun, fun holiday thing. I stayed with a foreigner that actually used to teaching in Songyuan, but left because he was miserable. We had only met once before, but obviously had a lot of mutual friends, and the world kind of gets a lot smaller once you leave the English speaking parts, so it's not as weird as it might sound.

In total, I interviewed/met with seven different schools (including teaching two demo classes), met a bunch of cool people, figured out how to get around town and what area I want to live in. I didn't end up doing too much touristy stuff, but I had a blast and fell in love with the city. My friend made for a great tour/life guide. Xiamen seems like a place I can actually have a life. In Songyuan, I do a lot of stuff, but it feels like a suspension of the real world there, not progression for me. Xiamen is definitely more western, but you can still find authentic China there as well; it's a good balance. I'm so jazzed for my move!!!

random pix: Hong Kong misc

So yeah, there's a lot of people in Hong Kong.

Dramatic.

It's weird but it works, I want this toilet.

So about being handicapable...

Boring beer?!

I NEED these backpacks.

Holy incense Batman.

random pix: Hong Kong art

Hong Kong

Last week I returned from a 10 day trip all over southern China. I started out with a brief stay in Shanzhen en route to Hong Kong for work, followed by about six days in Xiamen and then about three days in Guilin.

The work bit was of course ridiculous, what with all the efforts on the part of my school to cut costs. Instead of taking a taxi directly to the airport in Changchun (which takes about two hours), we took a taxi to the train station in Songyuan, took a train to Changchun, walked to another train station to take another train to the airport (five hours total there), where we took a plane (which we almost missed) and naturally didn't have a direct flight to Shenzhen, and then rounded it all out with a taxi to our hotel. We crashed right away, as we got in pretty late, and then in the morning took three different taxis to three different bus stations before we found one that went to Hong Kong (don't ask me how they didn't know this ahead of time). We finally got on our bus and had to take that one to another bus, to a taxi, to another taxi to check into our hotel in Hong Kong before we could get anything done. Ridiiiiiculous.

Two of us shared this room. Thank god we're small girls!

I went to Hong Kong coming off three consecutive days of Chinese lessons, so I was completely in "attempt as much Chinese as possible" mode when we got there. It was super discouraging and confusing that nobody seemed to understand me and respond to the most basic things... until we realized that they don't speak Mandarin in Hong Kong, they speak Cantonese and English. The English influence is really apparent, not just in the language and the amount of people that speak it. They drive on the left side of the road and drivers seats are on the right side of cards, completely unlike the rest of China. They have their own money. Hong Kong's relationship to China is really interesting. It's officially part of China, but in practice, not so much. Chinese people need a visa to get in!

While we were there we didn't really have time to do much in the way of leisure activities. We were all there for only one night, the rest of my group ended up staying for two, but I had places to go and people to see! Once we finished our work business, we were able to go out that night. We had Mexican food for dinner (YAY!), went to a place called The Peak, which is basically a mountain top overlooking the city and an awesome bar area called Soho.

I'll be back in Hong Kong for work again within the next month, but the trip will be quite similar, with minimal exploration time. Once I move down south to Xiamen, I'll be significantly closer so will be able to make much better exploratory trips!